Daniel Price - Slick

She sneered at me. “Shut up. Look, I know how big this is. I just want to help.”

“You are,” I said earnestly. “You’re an amazing help. In fact, I’ve been meaning to give you something.”

I retrieved a small, dusty key ring from the counter and tossed it to her. “The smaller one’s for the apartment. The other one’s for the building, although you always seem to get past that door.”

From the look on Madison’s face, you’d think I was on my knees, proposing. “Oh, wow. Scott.”

“It’s no big deal. I just don’t want you waiting in the hallway anymore.”

“So then if you’re not here tomorrow—”

“Knock. If I don’t answer, come in. Log on to my laptop. Start printing articles. Easy, right?”

“Wow. I really appreciate this.”

“Listen, those keys only exist on weekday afternoons. You understand me? I don’t want to come home on a Saturday night to find you here, hiding out from your family.”

“You won’t!”

“This isn’t your new airport.”

She clenched her hands together, drowning me in the kind of life-or-death intensity that makes adults so scared of teenagers.

“Scott, I swear to God I won’t abuse your trust. You are—” She cut herself off, waving her open hands. “Whatever. I’ll do anything you say.”

Outside, Jean remained in her SUV, patient and silent. It really wasn’t fair, was it? She had carried Madison for nine months and thirteen years. She made every sacrifice. And yet I was the one with all the power and influence over her precious little girl. I had more power than I knew what to do with. A lesser woman would have hated me for it. A lesser man would have given her a reason.

________________

So I couldn’t help but notice , Jean typed, my daughter’s two new keys.

Yeah, that was me , I typed back, less assuredly. Did I screw up?

We were done with e-mail word games. We were even done with e-mail. On Thursday night Jean had introduced me to EyeTalk, a freeware messaging application that allowed Internet users to communicate one-on-one in real time. Just minutes after registering myself with a username and password, I had Jean at my virtual doorstep. It wasn’t long before she brought up the key thing.

[mrvl_girl] You didn’t screw up at all. I’m just glad to see things going well on both ends.

[pr_demon] What do you mean both ends?

[mrvl_girl] I mean I knew _she_ was happy with the arrangement…

[pr_demon] So am I. I told you everything was fine.

[mrvl_girl] Well of course you’d say that to me. I’m her mother.

[pr_demon] Ah. I get it now.

[mrvl_girl] Right. Keys don’t lie. Unless they’re somehow misengraved.

[pr_demon] She’s a great kid.

[mrvl_girl] I always thought so.

[pr_demon] She definitely has your smarts.

[mrvl_girl] No. Her father’s the one who passed down the brains. I gave her volatility.

[pr_demon] But she’s been doing okay recently, right?

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. For the most part.

[pr_demon] What do you mean?

Now that we were linked up live, I could see her pause. Her cursor blinked steadily for a few awkward moments.

[mrvl_girl] You know what? This is the exact reason why she doesn’t want me talking to you. She has a point too. After all, I’m her mom. You’re her boss.

[pr_demon] True.

[mrvl_girl] And she takes her job VERY seriously.

[pr_demon] I noticed.

[mrvl_girl] Nobody wants their mom dishing dirt to their boss.

[pr_demon] Forget I asked.

[mrvl_girl] Forget I hinted.

[pr_demon] Forgotten.

[mrvl_girl] Shit.

[pr_demon] What?

[mrvl_girl] Now I’m afraid that in the absence of information, you’ll assume the worst about what I was going to say.

[pr_demon] *blinks stupidly*

[mrvl_girl] She really is a great kid.

[pr_demon] I know!

[mrvl_girl] A lot less trouble than I was at her age.

[pr_demon] You were a problem child?

[mrvl_girl] I used to cut my arms and legs with razors.

[pr_demon] Eeuu.

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. I was the youngest in a mob of blue-blooded Virginia Catholics. They were all dumb as posts. I was just deaf as one. I might as well have turned Iranian.

[pr_demon] Nobody else in your family was deaf?

[mrvl_girl] Nobody else in my life was deaf.

[pr_demon] Yeesh.

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. My folks didn’t know what to do with me. They took me to otologists, audiologists, speech pathologists, child psychologists.

[pr_demon] Speech pathologists? As in talking?

[mrvl_girl] There was indeed a time when I, under strict duress, attempted to squeeze words out through my throat. It was about as easy as farting a sonnet. Gave it up real fast, I did.

[pr_demon] Your family never learned sign language?

[mrvl_girl] No. Neither did I. Not until I was 16. Not until the Great Professor came along.

[pr_demon] You met your husband when you were 16?

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. One of the frustrated psychologists called him in to help me. He worked with me every night.

[pr_demon] That was nice of him.

[mrvl_girl] Sure. He opened my mind. My heart. My legs.

[pr_demon] At 16?!

[mrvl_girl] Well, I wasn’t exactly passive in the process.

[pr_demon] Yeah but you were 16!

[mrvl_girl] You told me you once shacked up with an older woman.

[pr_demon] Not until I was 21.

[mrvl_girl] Well, I was a mature 16. And as much as I loathe the man now, he was my saving grace at the time. If it wasn’t for him, I would have killed myself.

[pr_demon] Wow.

[mrvl_girl] But instead I ran off with him to Gallaudet and never looked back. Best move of my life. By 21, I was a completely different person. I was married. I was signing like a pro. I had friends. I had pride. And to top it all, I had Madison. My sweet little angel. I carried her through the Gallaudet revolution.

[pr_demon] The who to the what now?

[mrvl_girl] The “Deaf President Now!” protest. March 1988. It was the biggest Deaf uprising in history.

[pr_demon] It’s not ringing a bell.

[mrvl_girl] It was a school for the Deaf but it never had a Deaf president. So we fought. We won. It was historic. For us, anyway.

[pr_demon] Wow. My ignorance is staggering.

[mrvl_girl] You’re not that bad.

[pr_demon] Really? I feel like ever since I met you, I’ve made every mistake in the book.

[mrvl_girl] What book?

[pr_demon] I don’t know. Is there a book to help me become less ignorant about deaf issues?

[mrvl_girl] Like what? “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dummies”?

[pr_demon] Oof! Ouch! See, now if _I_ made that joke…

[mrvl_girl] You’d be in a lot of trouble, mister.

[pr_demon] I’ve been fighting the urge to ask you stupid questions.

[mrvl_girl] Oh, just ask them. Everyone else does.

[pr_demon] How’d you lose your hearing?

[mrvl_girl] Explosion at a chemical plant. It left me deaf but it heightened my other senses to a superhuman degree.

[pr_demon] I don’t think so.

[mrvl_girl] Fine. Spinal meningitis. I got it when I was two.

[pr_demon] So you’re 100 % deaf.

[mrvl_girl] 90 % in the left ear. 95 % in the right. I still get certain frequencies a little. I can hear the TV when it’s on. It gives off a faint, high-pitched squeal.

[pr_demon] That’s just the truth being tortured.

[mrvl_girl] Jesus. Did I just give you my whole life story?

[pr_demon] Only the first few chapters.

[mrvl_girl] Okay. So what’s your origin?

[pr_demon] My origin?

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. How’d you get to be you?

[pr_demon] I was bitten by a radioactive asshole.

[mrvl_girl] You’re not an asshole.

[pr_demon] No, but I have the proportionate strength and speed of one.